Search

Main menu

Southern rice and Haitian hunger

As in so many countries throughout the world, an important staple of the Haitian diet is rice, first brought by slaves from West Africa and cultivated on the Caribbean island nation for hundreds of years.

Until the mid-1980s, Haiti produced enough rice for domestic consumption -- but that changed after U.S. President Bill Clinton took office.

A champion of trade liberalization policies, Clinton pressed impoverished Haiti to cut tariffs on rice imported from the United States. Much of the U.S. rice that flooded Haiti as a result -- known by Haitians as "Miami rice" for the city where the shipments come from -- is produced by Riceland Foods, a farmer-owned agricultural marketing cooperative based in Clinton's home state of Arkansas.

What's been good for Riceland and U.S. rice farmers has not been so good for Haiti, though. With its market flooded by U.S. rice, Haiti's domestic rice production has dropped dramatically. That's made the country dependent on other nations for food and driven farmers out of the countryside and into the crowded cities that proved so vulnerable in January's earthquake.

Since the disaster, imported rice prices have climbed 25% and would probably be even higher if not for all the food aid, the Associated Press reports.

But it appears change may be coming. President Clinton -- now serving as the United Nations special envoy to Haiti and helping lead U.S. fundraising efforts in the wake of the devastating January earthquake -- acknowledged during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month that the trade policy he promoted has failed the Haitian people:

It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. I had to live every day with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did ... .

Agricultural trade policy is expected to be a topic of discussion at a U.N. Haiti donors' conference set for next week in New York. The Haitian government is seeking $722 million for agriculture, including an estimated $31 million for quake-related damage to its agricultural sector, part of an overall aid request of $11.5 billion, according to the AP:

"A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have ... resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told The Associated Press. "That's a global phenomenon, but Haiti's a prime example. I think this is where we should start."

Haitian President René Préval -- an agronomist by training -- has said he wants agricultural investment in his country prioritized over food aid.

But Riceland isn't pleased by the talk of changing agricultural trade policy vis-à-vis Haiti. Speaking to the AP, a spokesperson for the company insisted that its exports to Haiti are necessary to "feed countries which cannot feed themselves."

Categories:

Tags:

People Referenced:

Comments

“With Cheap Food Imports, Haiti Can’t Feed Itself,” failed to address several critical reasons why Haiti imports 70 percent of its food needs — including rice — an 80 percent increase in population since 1980, lack of arable land and a dearth of leadership and agricultural investment.

In the mid-1980s, Haiti’s rice production began to decline just as its population exploded. Since 1985, the country’s domestic rice yield has declined to just under 100,000 metric tons (MT) annually. Over the same time period, its population grew from 6.4 million to 9.8 million people — a 54 percent increase in 25 years. The population currently consumes an estimated 400,000 MT of rice annually — four times its annual production.

Haiti’s mountainous terrain has 1.4 million acres of land available for cultivation — with an estimated 300,000 acres suitable for irrigation. Of those 300,000 acres, only 185,000 acres are irrigated. Even if all of those acres were dedicated to rice, production would be an estimated 200,000 MT of milled rice — just half of the country’s current consumption. Clearly, Haitian production cannot meet consumer demand.

As a result of economic reforms initiated by the International Monetary Fund, the country’s rice export duty was reduced from 50 percent in 1994 to about 20 percent today. The substantial reduction in the official import duty may have contributed to a decrease in Haitian rice production, but domestic yield had failed to meet domestic demand long before the duty cut.

domestic rice production has dropped dramatically. That's made the country dependent on other nations for food and driven farmers out of the countryside and into the crowded cities that proved so vulnerable in January's http://www.jewellerybeadsale.com/

This week Walmart announced it would boost starting wages for employees to $10 an hour by next February. Some view the modest increase as a victory for workers' organizing efforts -- but others see it as an attempt to deflect the growing movement for a more substantial wage hike.

While governors in the Southeast are pushing for offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic, elected officials in other East Coast states are fighting the proposal, saying the potential cost is too great.

While unions in the South have followed the national trend of declining membership, they have also made recent gains in the region. Meanwhile, demographic changes are underway that offer more hope for labor organizing.